Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me • Hacker News Board

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#241

Post by pluma » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 2:31 PM UTC

6t6t6 wrote: post #232

edent wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, it looks like a breach of the Data Protection Act - https://iconewsblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/21/personal-data-i... Likely to be similar across Europe.

Now it is a good moment to remember when they started to pass Data Protection laws in Europe 15 years ago and everybody was freaking out like "Oh my good, with this laws it will be impossible to do Internet business in Europe! All the companies will go to America!" Profit...

Furthermore at least under German law I'm fairly certain their deletion fee is entirely illegal and retaining any records linked to the account (other than the separate billing information) after saying they've deleted your account would be even more so.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#242

Post by JohnBooty » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 6:59 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #234

JohnBooty wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't ignore it. Yes, in Western (or at least American) society men do tend to pursue women more actively than vice-versa. This is probably true in most cultures though I don't have firsthand experience. No, you do not need to be "handsome, wealthy and well endowed (i.e. perfect)" in order to avoid being "at the mercy of women." Just try to put up a fake profile on a dating site as an experiment and see what ends up…

> Saw lots of guys who weren't "perfect" have a great time and find success in relationships That's not the point. The point is the relative difference in effort. And it's not just that men tend to pursue, but that the starting point on dating sites is so extremely uneven - the threshold to message someone is so low that men approach at a far higher rate than they dare to in real life, and approach women well outside…

What's indisputable is that women get flooded with offers on dating sites. We agree there.

Whether or not this means that women can more easily find successful and enjoyable dates and/or relationships on dating sites... is another story.

An inbox full of unwanted advances from a bunch of strangers is not exactly a liberating experience, I wouldn't think. Certainly women I know don't think so.

They clearly have a greater number of suitors to choose from, yes, but like you say - men tend to approach women in such great numbers that there's no way to know who's worth pursuing.

How do you have a quality conversation with a stranger when 100 strangers are trying to talk to you simultaneously?

To top it off, the stakes are a little higher for women. A woman is one mistake (or one instance of violated consent) away from getting pregnant. A woman is always one step away from being sexually assaulted. Obviously men can be victims too, but adult female-on-male sexual assault is vanishingly rare.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#243

Post by JohnBooty » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

transfire wrote: post #199

Frondo wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa! That is some seriously messed-up stuff! Imperfect men can either beg for sex or attempt rape? No! Just, no! A thousand times no! I would strongly encourage you to talk to a professional mental health practitioner if that's your view on sexual relations. Something has gone seriously off the rails for you, and I hope you'll put in the effort to try and fix things up.

You seemed to have missed what I said about subtlety. When a man takes a woman on a date and pays for it, it's a subtle form of "begging". When a man is forward with a woman in hopes she will like the advances it is subtle form of "taking". You're the one reading only the extremities into what I said.

I'm sorry you have come to view human relationships as variations on "begging" and "taking."

I hope that one day you have happy, healthy relationships where you simply enjoy each others' company and things aren't so transactional.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#244

Post by rdancer » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 11:21 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #226

rdancer wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> men cheat a little more than women, according to studies Women admit to cheating less than men, and this is reflected in a bias of studies whose methodology includes self-reporting. In general, women self-report about one third less sex partners than men. That presents a curious mathematical problem: who are all those extra men partnering with? Let's say the average reported number of sex partners for males is 11.7…

The design of the study has more to do with this than anything else. Still, there's been several decades (at least) of independent study on the subject, and all of them i've seen conclude that more men cheat than women, even if more recent studies show the frequency of women cheating is increasing. Regardless of your math, the fact that every study leads to the same conclusion is what I would call strong evidence tha…

> there's a smaller group of women who sleep with a greater number of men

That's a falacy. If a small number of women raise the number of their sexual partners, the rest of the women must lower their number of sexual partners, to keep the average the same. That's not the way to explain the deficit.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#245

Post by rdancer » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 11:21 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #226

rdancer wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> men cheat a little more than women, according to studies Women admit to cheating less than men, and this is reflected in a bias of studies whose methodology includes self-reporting. In general, women self-report about one third less sex partners than men. That presents a curious mathematical problem: who are all those extra men partnering with? Let's say the average reported number of sex partners for males is 11.7…

The design of the study has more to do with this than anything else. Still, there's been several decades (at least) of independent study on the subject, and all of them i've seen conclude that more men cheat than women, even if more recent studies show the frequency of women cheating is increasing. Regardless of your math, the fact that every study leads to the same conclusion is what I would call strong evidence tha…

> there's a smaller group of women who sleep with a greater number of men

That's a falacy. If a small number of women raise the number of their sexual partners, the rest of the women must lower their number of sexual partners, to keep the average the same. That's not the way to explain the deficit.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#246

Post by rdancer » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 12:20 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #218

rdancer wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> men cheat a little more than women, according to studies Women admit to cheating less than men, and this is reflected in a bias of studies whose methodology includes self-reporting. In general, women self-report about one third less sex partners than men. That presents a curious mathematical problem: who are all those extra men partnering with? Let's say the average reported number of sex partners for males is 11.7…

> mathematically, hetero-sexual partnerships always draw from both sets equally Uh, no, not from the sets under study. You've ignored time and space. The sets under study are the set of men and set of women currently living in a particular countries. The sets from whom their past partners are drawn (even assuming purely heterosexual relationships) may include people no longer living at the time of the survey, as well…

Time and space are good retorts, let's talk about them. The UK is a relatively cosmopolitan kingdom, and those trips to Magaluf & Basra must lead to some monkey business, right?

Time. Women live longer on average, and there is also on average an age gap between heterosex partners (males older); therefore it is more probable that the male sex partner will be deceased, not the female. The numbers for females, if anything, should therefore be higher.

Space. If the UK is a net exporter of male sexual partners, that would mean that some other country or countries would be net importers. Regardless, the worldwide number of heterosex connections must be the same for women and men. But that's not the case. In every country, with the notable exception of New Zealand, women report less sex partners than men, and the worldwide aggregate for men is still unexplainedly higher than the aggregate for women.

Some studies suggest the gap to be due to women underreporting, some studies suggest prostitutes are underrepresented in the samples, but in the end, whenever somebody wants to argue that men tend to have more sex partners than women, let them know that (a) one number is pretty useless in telling the whole story, and (b) if conclusions of a study present a mathematical paradox, they should be taken with a grain of salt.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#247

Post by true_religion » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 2:26 AM UTC

TDL wrote: post #78

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I also do not approve on taking action that would result in folks I do not know getting exposed. Folks have a right to their own lives. I do not think there is such a right, because what you are describing is (in probably many cases) a right to break an agreement (marriage in this case) and keep pretending that you honor it until you yourself disclose it. In simpler terms: you may have "a right to your own life…

Do you have right? Yes. Should you lie to your partner? Probably not. People have the right to do many things, even if those things are not beneficial to them in the long term.

This isn't just an issue of lying or not lying to their partner.

Many people may have already worked out the cheating issue with their partners, and put themselves past it. However, now their friends and coworkers and neighbors can pretty easily search to see if they're in the dump. Not because they need to know... just because they're curious.

I don't think these people need to be exposed to that kind of scrutiny.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#248

Post by JupiterMoon » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 11:31 AM UTC

pluma wrote: post #240

edent wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, it looks like a breach of the Data Protection Act - https://iconewsblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/21/personal-data-i... Likely to be similar across Europe.

I'm not entirely sure about that. It's personal data in the sense that you're likely not allowed to process them (as a business or corporation -- whether for commercial use or not). But most of these laws are written for companies and for individuals granted access to personal information by those companies. As a person you're certainly not allowed to distribute the information (or at least not any personally identif…

That is what I took from the link as well. It is OK to get hold of the data. However, it is a crime e.g.: to use it to personally identify someone, or to distribute it (even accidentally! (you have obligations under the data protection act to prevent this)) (this would probably also cover using torrents to download it).

So in the UK be careful and anonomise it before working with it -- as is required with e.g. similar (legally obtained) datasets in the social sciences. Then totally delete the raw dataset from your system -- otherwise if you e.g. lose your laptop you become liable for any further re-distribution.

Not planning on looking at it anyway.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#249

Post by JupiterMoon » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 12:18 PM UTC

pluma wrote: post #241

6t6t6 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now it is a good moment to remember when they started to pass Data Protection laws in Europe 15 years ago and everybody was freaking out like "Oh my good, with this laws it will be impossible to do Internet business in Europe! All the companies will go to America!" Profit...

Furthermore at least under German law I'm fairly certain their deletion fee is entirely illegal and retaining any records linked to the account (other than the separate billing information) after saying they've deleted your account would be even more so.

In general this is I think true throughout the EU. The problem has always been enforcement. I hope that one of the side effects of this leak will be to persuade companies that their databases are not just assets but also potential financial and legal liabilities.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#250

Post by peterwwillis » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

rdancer wrote: post #244

peterwwillis wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The design of the study has more to do with this than anything else. Still, there's been several decades (at least) of independent study on the subject, and all of them i've seen conclude that more men cheat than women, even if more recent studies show the frequency of women cheating is increasing. Regardless of your math, the fact that every study leads to the same conclusion is what I would call strong evidence tha…

> there's a smaller group of women who sleep with a greater number of men That's a falacy. If a small number of women raise the number of their sexual partners, the rest of the women must lower their number of sexual partners, to keep the average the same. That's not the way to explain the deficit.

The average number of women who cheat? Or of men? Either one doesn't change if a small group of women has a larger number of partners, though the average of men who cheat may increase.